


Kin

by ForgingOurDestiny



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: BAMF Merlin, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Merthur is implied, Slightly crackish at times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23669668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForgingOurDestiny/pseuds/ForgingOurDestiny
Summary: When Uther sends Arthur, Merlin, and the Knights out on a hunt after a sorcerer they see the value that family has, and Arthur realises that his maybe isn't as good as he thinks...
Relationships: Knights of the Round Table & Merlin (Merlin), Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 284





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story started off as something completely different. I had an idea, tried to write it, and then I went off on a tangent that changed the way the story went. Oops... Anyway, this is the result of that tangent. I'll try and post another story where my idea actually comes into being at some point.
> 
> Also, I feel the need to point out that I know that the knights aren't around when Uther is King, but I wanted to include a humiliated Uther alongside our favourite knights. Morgana isn't mentioned but she is good in this fic, because my girl deserved better.
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading my ramblings, and I hope you enjoy!

It was the same old song and dance, really. It happened so often these days that Merlin had even devised a formula for it to follow. It went like this:

  1. Something causes a threat to Camelot
  2. Gaius and Merlin investigate, and it turns out to be a new magical threat
  3. Uther is informed
  4. Uther completely disregards the (exhausting) hours of research that Merlin and Gaius did to identify this new threat
  5. Things get worse
  6. Uther blames magic for refusing to act
  7. Uther sends Arthur out to fix the problem (and Arthur drags Merlin along for the ride)
  8. Arthur’s life somehow becomes endangered
  9. Arthur is thankfully distracted, and Merlin saves him using magic
  10. They return victorious and Uther credits his ingenious plan
  11. Merlin has more dents and scratches to work out of Arthur’s armour



They were currently on step 7 of the formula; a curse had been put upon the castle, causing the hair of all of the nobles in the castle to turn magnificent neon colours. Apparently, a servant had been dismissed because she had used some dye to turn her hair a shade of lavender and was then accused of sorcery as a result of having locks of hair of “an unnatural colour”. (Gaius was able to explain to the King that there had been no sorcery involved, and the girl escaped execution. This had the unfortunate consequence of causing Uther to become embarrassed and so he dismissed her anyway.) Seems that the girl had known some magic after all, and Uther had sent Arthur, a few of the knights, and a reluctant Merlin, to deal with the problem.

They had managed to track the trail the girl had taken when fleeing the citadel, leaving them deep in the forest. They had been going for the whole day and, as the light was fading, they were called to set up a camp.

Securing and feeding the horses was probably Merlin’s favourite thing about these impromptu expeditions he always got sent on. They were generally calm, well-mannered, polite, _unlikely to throw things and insults at him-_

“Come on Merlin, the sun’s setting and you still haven’t gotten a fire lit.” was the remark that followed a waterskin hitting the back of his head. It would seem that that prat of a prince was incapable of doing anything for himself and the idiot knights, who Merlin had _foolishly_ called friends, seemed content to watch Arthur bully his manservant.

In times like these, Lancelot was a godsend. Once Merlin had secured the horses, he turned to find Lancelot scolding Gwaine and Elyan for just laying around and was getting them to lay out their own bedrolls, Percival and Leon had already prepared their bedrolls and seemed to be gathering firewood, and Arthur was looking constipated (although he was probably just trying to stifle a laugh at Gwaine and Elyan’s faces. Yes, Lancelot was kind, and sweet, and noble, but when he got angry, he was a force to be reckoned with. He and Gwen were a perfect match.)

Leaving the (much preferred) company of the horses to light the fire and start cooking, Merlin let the background chatter of the knights fade away. He didn’t think the young woman had been malicious in her attempts to seek revenge on the nobles occupying the castle, in many ways he thought it justified, as many of the servants who knew her had. However, he may have been biased, seeing as it provided him with one of the best mornings he’d had in a long time.

~*~

Waking Arthur was one of his daily duties, and normally offered some form of entertainment. He either got to annoy an idiot who was too sleepy to think of a response, which was always cathartic, or he got to sneak bits and pieces of the royal breakfast right from under Arthur’s nose.

Merlin really thought he’d seen it all by now, especially after he’d had to wrestle Arthur out of bed and caught an eyeful of something that probably should have been left unseen; it was certainly a shock, but not a totally unpleasant one. Anyway, strolling into the royal bedchambers had become the norm, what hadn’t been was seeing a tuft of bright green where gold usually took up residence. The warlock had managed to keep the tray covered in mouth-watering breakfast foods balanced and so was able to sneak up on this invader rather stealthily. He placed the tray on the table and made his way towards the bed, readying his magic in case whatever was hiding under the quilt decided to get aggressive. He grabbed a corner and yanked it back, only to be met with a baffling sight… which promptly caused him to startle the occupant of the bed awake with his uncontrollable laughter.

There, laying in bed was Arthur (shirtless, by the way… no, bad Merlin) with a neon green crown of hair.

At the time, laughing seemed to be the only appropriate response, but, in hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best way to wake a very jumpy prince. Arthur had launched upright only to look up, around, and then down to the floor to discover a rather winded Merlin pointing at his head and laughing hysterically. He shot the crumpled body on the floor a confused look and, when that did nothing but encourage the laughter, sprang from his bed and ran for the mirror. The scream that rang out from the room signalled bloody murder and when the guards ran in to find the Crown Prince looking at his lime-green locks in disbelief and his manservant on the floor howling with laughter, they decided it probably wasn’t as urgent as they had thought and gracefully backed out.

When Merlin had finally managed to calm himself down enough to look at Arthur without almost bursting into tears again, they went back to their normal (highly domestic) routine. Once Arthur was dressed, a servant came to inform him that the King had requested his presence in the throne room immediately. Arthur set off at once, Merlin at his side. On arrival, Arthur sent Merlin a warning look and opened the door. It soon became apparent what the issue was, and Merlin had to turn around and walk back down the corridor to his room. When he heard the door to the throne room shut, he figured he was safe to laugh at the image of Uther with lavender-coloured hair on his head, his bright red face a lovely accompaniment. He was later informed that he had been nowhere near quiet enough.

The only person who had been affected and was appearing to enjoy their new neon hair was Gwaine. It appeared that hot pink suited him.

~*~

In regard to this, the fired serving girl was sort of like a hero to the rest of the staff in the castle, doling out vigilante justice against the people who had wronged her. Uther had apparently not seen the funny side. He declared it an act of evil and had sent Arthur and his merry band of knights out to destroy her, even after Gaius managed to brew a potion to reverse the effects of her spell. Merlin had thought it to be a waste of ingredients and had repeatedly and vehemently claimed that orange was Gaius’ colour.

With camp set up and everyone fed and watered, a watch was set, and Merlin promptly fell asleep. For once, his dreams were filled, not with nightmares of his past traumas but of images of carrot-topped mentors, flower-haired kings and princes who’s hair glows in the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this took way longer than I hoped it would. For some reason this gave me so much trouble when I was writing it, even though I knew exactly what I wanted to happen. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy, and I am so sorry for making you wait!

Sunrise: the start of a new day, bringing hope and endless possibilities with it. Normally Merlin missed it, recovering from whatever had caused his new bout of exhaustion. Admittedly, he wasn’t a morning person but sometimes he didn’t mind mornings if it meant that he got to watch the inky blue transform into burning gold before settling on a light, cloudy blue. It was always surprisingly peaceful and settled something within him, offered a peace of mind that he thought he’d lost years ago.

On this morning, sunrise signalled to start moving. The girl they were tracking had obviously been keen to get away, she hadn’t even tried to cover her tracks making it rather easy to follow her.

They didn’t travel for long (maybe two hours if that) when the forest opened up in front of them. They faced a small village; about 20 houses, a town hall, a tavern, a little square filled with stalls, surrounded on all sides by fields filled with crops. It reminded Merlin of Ealdor, his childhood full of making and executing half-baked plans with Will and giving his mother heart attacks every other week. It looked to be one of those places where everyone knew everyone. The knowledge that everyone had of everyone else would either make things really easy or really hard – either they’d be told exactly who the girl who had returned was, or no-one would say anything. A cursory glance around the village showed children playing in the square and people stood around talking and laughing with each other. They weren’t going to give her up easily.

Before Merlin could voice his (very intelligent, mind you) insights, Arthur rode off towards the village. He could never make things easy, could he? The knights followed, with Merlin bringing up the rear, dreading what was about to transpire.

~*~

Arthur stopped and dismounted in the middle of the square, handing his mare off to Merlin. The people in the square seemed to shy away from him and the knights. People tended to do that when he wore all of his armour; he assumed that even though he tried to make sure that people saw his knights as symbols of safety and hope many still saw them as figures of violence and fear.

Despite the occupants of the village clearly being uncomfortable, Arthur had a job to do. The serving girl’s spell had been harmless, a nuisance (and a shock) at most. He wished her no harm, but his father had made his orders clear and, when he found her, the girl was to be dragged back to the citadel to be executed on the pyre.

Arthur liked villages like this, where life was simple, and politics had no place. He could easily see himself spending days in the fields; it might prove to be fulfilling to know that the food on your plate was the result of your hard work. In the future he’d like to take over a farm for a week and bring his knights with him, use it as a chance to unwind, bond, and have a place to run training drills. Maybe he could convince some of the nobles from his father’s court to go with them and then watch them squirm as they realised that they would be working alongside their servants. It would also be a chance to see what the hell Merlin got up to all day and why it always seemed to take him so long.

The knights split up, two going to each stall, and asked if a girl matching the serving girl’s description had come through recently. Most received uncomfortable silences and shifty eyes until a young child answered them. The little boy had obviously overheard Leon ask the question to the woman running the stall and, seeing that the woman was unable to remember, offered an answer of his own. He pointed Leon and the rest of their little party in the direction of one of the larger homes nearer the fields. Leon thanked the boy, signalled to Arthur and the others, and told them of what he had learned.

Whilst Leon explained that there was a family that lived in the house, Arthur’s eyes strayed to the faces of his companions. Percival smiled when he saw a man that was embracing a woman and two small children. Because of his large stature, many people assumed that he was as tough as steel, with little to no empathy: in reality, Percival was a huge teddy bear of a man and almost as reluctant as Merlin when it came to hunting animals for sport.

Gwaine looked to be paying no attention to Leon at all, scanning their surroundings, a spark appearing in his eyes when they alighted on the tavern Arthur was sure they’d be forced into at some point.

Lancelot looked grim; Arthur knew that he had grown up in a village like this one and being here to bring a girl to her death must be jarring. At least he would be consoled with the fact that they were going to be capturing someone dangerous and protecting the citizens of Camelot.

Elyan, at least, was paying attention to what Leon was saying. He looked to be observing the house, searching for possible escape routes in case everything went horribly wrong, which they did surprisingly often, for some reason.

Finally, Arthur looked to Merlin. Merlin kept glancing from Leon to the house – he looked incredibly reluctant to be a part of this, and ever so slightly worried. Suddenly, Arthur wondered if he’d known the young woman they were looking for. Maybe they had been friends or had helped each other at some point. Arthur couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to find out that someone you had worked with for years was hiding such a bone-deep evil within themselves. It must be awful.

Once Leon had finished explaining that five people lived in the house the girl was thought to be in, they drew their swords and advanced on the house, keeping Merlin at the back. Arthur approached the door, knocked, and prepared to be attacked.

~*~

Even though he was at the back of the group, Merlin was still able to see the girl that opened the door. Merlin knew that it was the girl they were looking for, she matched the description they were given perfectly but, after looking at her properly, it was clear she was little more than a child. She looked to be just 14 summers, still new to the world. The fact that Uther wanted her dead made Merlin want to throw up.

She looked terrified. Huge men with swords were towering over her, so he supposed fear was the only appropriate reaction. From behind her, a man about 10 summers Merlin’s senior approached: upon seeing the knights holding swords towards her, he pulled her backwards, putting himself in their way.

Arthur and the other knights looked as stricken as Merlin had felt but after the man pulled her back, they seemed to return to themselves. Arthur kept his sword drawn but signalled for the knights to put theirs away. The man blocking the girl from their view seemed to be getting more perturbed by the minute. “What can I help you with, sire?” The question was directed at Arthur, but his gaze never left the one drawn sword.

“We’ve come in search of the girl behind you. She cursed Camelot and has been sentenced to death by King Uther.” It was said confidently, but Merlin could hear the reluctance in Arthur’s voice as he looked at the girl again.

“It wasn’t her! I-I heard that she had been dismissed unfairly and decided to take action against the injustice my daughter faced.” The girl made a noise in the back of her throat at this declaration, and it must have caught the attention of someone behind her, for two women appeared in the door. One looked to be as old as Kilgarrah, all wrinkles and shocking white hair: in contrast, the other looked to be the same age as the man stood in front of them.

When they seemed to have registered what the man had said, a cacophony of noise bombarded Merlin’s ears. It was all very loud, but he managed to hear both women confessing to using magic to curse Camelot and insisting that the girl was innocent. This was nothing new, families were always reluctant to see a member go to the pyre, although most of the accused weren’t so young.

~*~

Arthur wasn’t quite sure what to do. He’d just gotten three separate confessions to using sorcery and if the teenage boy lurking in the background had anything to say about it, he was sure he’d have a fourth. He’d dealt with distraught families trying to save members of their family but normally their confessions fell on deaf ears and the true guilty party would be dragged away while the other knights dealt with the rest of the family.

The girl’s age must have knocked him (and the rest of the knights, it would seem) off kilter. Condemning someone so young was uncommon but not unheard of, and it always made Arthur feel sick to his stomach. Surely no-one so young could be harbouring such evil, and even if she were, why would her family simply not hand her over?

The family was speaking over each other, all claiming their own guilt and the innocence of the others; why did the straight-forward cases always seem to get so convoluted? Did God hate him, or had he committed such a heinous crime in a previous life?

From where he was standing, Arthur saw two options: 1. He take the girl they had come for and deal with the distraught, and possibly violent, family, or 2. They take all of the people that had confessed to using sorcery back to Camelot and burn them all, as well as the girl they had come for. They were horrible circumstances, but he had no other choices… unless he did.

~*~

Merlin knew when Arthur was thinking, he always hunched up his shoulders and a little crinkle appeared between his eyebrows. Merlin hated when they were put in these situations, because they were always forced to be the bad guys and it just made more and more people think of Arthur and the knights, his friends, as if they were evil or bad people.

Merlin knew that this was a lose-lose situation, but still he hoped for an outcome, where everyone came out alright. That would the day…

Sometimes Merlin wondered what life would be like if Arthur knew about his magic and accepted it. Whenever he thought of it, it hurt so much; he found it so easy to fantasise about how easy, how simple life would be after he told everyone and yet the thought of anyone finding out made him freeze up, terrified. He knew life would be simpler, easier, (for better or worse) once everyone knew but he couldn’t stand the thought of going through the process of telling everyone.

A glint of sharpened metal caught Merlin’s eye, drawing him out of his musings. It seemed Arthur had come to a decision. Merlin braced himself, hoping for as little violence as possible whilst preparing for the worst.

~*~

“As I have received the confessions of using sorcery against Camelot from this household, I see only one course of action I can take. These revelations come into direct conflict with the ruling given by my father. As such, I can’t be sure that the girl we were sent to arrest is guilty, just as I can’t be sure that any of you are guilty of the same crime. I refuse to dole out the death penalty when I remain unsure as to the innocence of anyone involved. I’m sorry that you’ve had to go through such an ordeal and now my men and I shall leave you to enjoy your day.”

Arthur stepped back, inclined his head, and put away his sword. He looked up to find everyone in the doorway looking amazed, and slightly wary. Surely that little statement had assured them. Ah well, he had done all he could. With that, he turned, signalled to his men, and lead the way to the tavern.

As he turned, Arthur caught sight of Merlin. He looked astounded, mouth just a little bit open. Arthur would have felt appropriately insulted if he didn’t see the pride that was obvious in Merlin’s eyes. Maybe keeping a family together wasn’t the only good thing he had done today.

~*~

They marched off, Arthur leading the way, away from the house. They had just reached the market when the family they had left seemed to properly absorb what had just happened. They entered the tavern with cheers, whoops and relieved sobs echoing behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Hopefully I'll have a something else up on Sunday, a oneshot of the original concept that set this whole thing off. I'll see you then! TTFN, ta ta for now.

**Author's Note:**

> I have the outline for the second chapter in my head and so hopefully it should be written and up sometime tomorrow.
> 
> On a different note entirely, I've got a shit ton of books to read for my English Lit course that I'm (hopefully) starting in September and I can't decide which one to start with, so I thought I'd ask you guys. So, which should I read first: Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy or Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen?
> 
> Comments and criticism would be much appreciated, and thank you for reading!


End file.
